ILS International Law and Practice Course 2026 | May – November 2026, Sydney and Online
Session 6 – Professor Nicole Rogers
Session 6:
Unlawful by Definition: the role of International law in a planetary existential crisis
The eagerly awaited Advisory Opinion on legal obligations of nation states with respect to climate change was handed down as a unanimous decision by the 15 judges of the International Court of Justice on 23 July 2025. The Court confirmed that nation states have obligations pursuant to climate treaties, other environmental treaties, customary international law and international human rights law to adopt all necessary measures to protect the climate system, subject to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and taking into account respective capabilities.
These obligations extend to regulating the conduct of private actors, namely corporations. In this presentation, I explore the findings of the Court and consider likely impacts of the Advisory Opinion on domestic and international climate litigation. I shall reflect upon the constraints and vulnerability of international law and the rule of law itself when contending with an existential crisis.
Date
Tuesday,
13 October 2026
Time
7:45 am - 9:00 am
AEST
Location
To be advised
Meet the Speaker
Professor Nicole Rogers
Professor Rogers has researched widely in the areas of climate law, wild law, interdisciplinary climate studies and performance studies theory and the law. In 2014, she instigated and then co-led the Wild Law Judgment project, which culminated in an edited publication of collected wild law judgments in 2017.
In her research monographs, she focused upon the interplay of climate narratives across a range of fields including law, politics, activism and fiction. Her latest co-edited book, The Anthropocene Judgments Project: Futureproofing the Common Law (Routledge, 2023), is the product of an international, interdisciplinary, collaborative project in which participants have written the judgments of the future.